Not anymore. After inking a deal with ESPN New York, Red Storm fans will be able to tune in on their radios. The deal, struck early last month, scheduled 26 St. John\u2019s games on 880 AM or 1050 AM (and also the ESPN New York streaming app).<\/p>\n
\u201cI was born in Brooklyn, grew up in Queens and now live on Long Island \u2013 sports talk radio has been a big part of everything here from the time when I was young and it’s part of the DNA of the sports scene in New York,\u201d St. John\u2019s athletic director Ed Kull told Newsday. \u201cGetting back on the radio was something I\u2019d been thinking about since I took this job over a year ago. To me, it felt just really kind of bare and naked that we didn’t have our games on radio, especially as a nationally ranked program.\u201d<\/p>\n
When the Storm was still a Big East draw, its games were carried on WFAN and then on ESPN New York. As they slipped in stature, they went through a number of radio station “homes”\u00a0until the 2021-22 season when they ceased to be on the radio entirely.<\/p>\n
But now play-by-play man John Minko and the rotating collection of analysts \u2013 Brandon Tierney, Vin Parise, Tarik Turner and Brian Mahoney \u2013 are back.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe best thing about this is St. John\u2019s is back on an all-sports radio station, which is really where they belong like all the other major teams in New York,\u201d Minko told Newsday.<\/p>\n
Kull had conversations with a number of outlets, especially the all-sports platforms of WFAN and ESPN New York. WFAN\u2019s partnership with Rutgers and commitment to its football and men\u2019s basketball programs was going to make it a a tough fit. ESPN New York \u2013 which has the Mets in its portfolio \u2013 dovetailed nicely with what Kull and St. John\u2019s were looking for.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re looking to keep our fan base engaged as well as grow it,\u201d Kull said. \u201cI’m also very much aware of who our fan base is and there\u2019s an older demographic, too. There\u2019s an older season ticket-holder base that still listens very strongly to terrestrial radio. So I’m trying to make sure I’m listening to what our fans want and need here.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was a conversation at a Mets game that Kull had with longtime St. John\u2019s and Mets radio engineer-producer Chris Majkowski<\/a> that put talks with ESPN New York on track. His encouragement led to conversations with ESPN New York executive Pete Doherty, who also happened to be a St. John\u2019s alumnus. Things came together from there.<\/p>\n \u201cWe feel both very happy and very fortunate to be with ESPN New York,\u201d Kull said. \u201cNow many of our games are on 880 [AM], just like the Mets, and we feel it\u2019s a great partnership.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s incredibly positive to have St. John\u2019s basketball on the air at ESPN New York,\u201d said Emily Dillinger, executive vice president of ESPN New York partner Good Karma Brands. \u201cWe\u2019re committed to serving local sports fans, and being the home for teams that matter in our community is a big part of who we are. St. John\u2019s has a passionate following, and we\u2019re proud to provide a platform that brings their games and stories closer to New York listeners.\u201d<\/p>\n The St. John\u2019s radio broadcasts include a pre-game show and a post-game interview with the broadcasters and a member of the Storm’s coaching staff.<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe we’re getting to a point where everything is going to be streaming, but I don’t think we’re there yet,\u201d Minko said. \u201cIt is important for the Yankees and the Mets to be on what I call \u00a0‘regular radio’ and this is just another example of what [Storm coach] Rick Pitino<\/a> has done to make the program more relevant. There\u2019s a market for it . . because people are in their cars.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tRoger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 to write about high schools, colleges and baseball following 20 years at the Daily News. A Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2011, he has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you live in the Greater New York Area \u2013 and particularly on Long Island \u2013 it\u2019s a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62138,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3361,3080,1208,9,11,10,14191,13630],"class_list":{"0":"post-62137","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-college-basketball","9":"tag-espn","10":"tag-media","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-headlines","13":"tag-new-york-news","14":"tag-oin","15":"tag-st-johns"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62137\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n